The Rabbi's Atheist Daughter

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“[Rose’s] identities come together seamlessly in this highly engaging biography by Bonnie S. Anderson, a scholar rightfully renowned for her stellar work on the international woman’s movement and feminism.”

— Mari Jo Buhle, Professor Emerita, Brown University

Early feminist Ernestine Rose, more famous in her time than Elizabeth Cady Stanton or Susan B. Anthony, has been undeservedly forgotten. During the 1850s, Rose was an outstanding orator for women's rights in the United States who became known as "the Queen of the platform." Yet despite her successes and close friendships with other activists, she would gradually be erased from history for being too much of an outlier: a foreigner, a radical, and, of most concern to her peers and later historians, an atheist.

In The Rabbi's Atheist Daughter, the most extensively researched account of Rose's life and career to date, Bonnie S. Anderson recovers the unique legacy of one of the nineteenth century's most prominent radical activists. Born the only child of a Polish rabbi, Ernestine Rose rejected religion at an early age, legally fought a betrothal to a man she did not want to marry, and left her family, Judaism, and Poland forever. Although many radicals honored her work, her contributions to women's rights had been passed over by historians by the 1920s. Nearly a century later, The Rabbi's Atheist Daughter, an engaging, well-rounded portrait of one of the mothers of the American feminist movement, returns Ernestine Rose to her rightful place.

Praise for The Rabbi's Atheist Daughter:

“Bonnie S. Anderson’s new biography elevates [Ernestine Rose] further into the top rank of 19th-century agitators. In this richly detailed portrait, Rose stands alongside William Lloyd Garrison, Susan B. Anthony, and Fanny Wright....[Anderson’s] picture of Rose is consistently drawn with clarity and color.”

— LOS ANGELES REVIEW OF BOOKS

“This biography of Rose is fabulous! Fabulous! I thoroughly enjoyed reading it, so much so that I finished it in less than two days.”

— CAROL FAULKNER, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF HISTORY, SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY

“Ernestine Rose has long been relegated to the margins of the abolitionist and woman’s rights movements to which she devoted her life. In Bonnie Anderson’s new book we have, finally, a biography that is as eloquent, passionate, freethinking, transnational, argumentative, and eager to explore the boundaries of radical possibility as was Rose herself.”

— LORI D. GINZBERG, AUTHOR OF ELIZABETH CADY STANTON: AN AMERICAN LIFE

“For someone (like me) who thought she knew Ernestine Rose, this book is a revelation. The gift Bonnie Anderson gives us is the opportunity to hear the fearless words actually spoken by Ernestine Rose, and they’re magnificent, powerful testimony to her constancy, boldness, and defiant advocacy for women’s rights.”

“Bonnie Anderson uncovers, in this deeply researched work, the astonishing life of Ernestine Potowski Rose, champion of all human rights. A powerful orator, she crisscrossed an ocean and continents to speak her mind. A contemporary newspaper expected that it would take a hundred years for her to be fully appreciated. This excellent biography of a woman of fierce intellect and uncompromising convictions fulfills that prediction, affording our generation the fullest depiction yet of the remarkable Ernestine Rose.”

— PAMELA S. NADELL, AUTHOR OF WOMEN WHO WOULD BE RABBIS: A HISTORY OF WOMEN’S ORDINATION, 1889-1985

“Bonnie Anderson tells the powerful story of Ernestine Rose, one of the most distinguished and distinctive advocates of woman’s rights, free thought, and racial equality in the nineteenth century. Rose linked activists in the United States with radical traditions in Britain and Europe, reminding readers of the multifaceted and transatlantic character of nineteenth-century social movements. While many books claim they are intended for both an academic and popular audience, The Rabbi’s Atheist Daughter delivers on that promise.”